


Things Fall Apart

by cakeisnotpie



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Agents of SHIELD Compliant, FTC, Fuck the Canon, I do what I want, M/M, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?, just go with it, my own headcanon, why Phil coulson's relationships don't last, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakeisnotpie/pseuds/cakeisnotpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We’ve always had each other’s back. I’m asking you to do that now.”</p>
<p>“I’ll always be with you, Phil.” Clint cautiously took one step closer until the barrel of the gun was almost touching his vest. “The only reason I stayed with SHIELD was because you were there."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Fall Apart

**Author's Note:**

> My “fuck the canon” version of where Clint was during Cap 2 and what Phil should be doing. Sort of Agents of Shield compliant. If you squint real hard. This was supposed to be all dark but my muse had different ideas. Posting as is since she usually knows better than I do.

Footstep by footstep, Clint kept going, knowing if he stopped, the others would never make it. One other agent, two surviving lab techs, and the twins followed behind him, battered and bruised, all of them pushed beyond exhaustion. The trust Clint had with the two powerful young people was tenuous at best; both were wary of anyone, and Clint couldn’t blame them. Strucker had kept them prisoner, experimented on them, scientists had poked and prodded the twins as part of their own bargains to stay alive. For six months, Clint had been deep undercover, following the breadcrumbs that led him to the underground bunker and Strucker’s “miracles.” The fact that Loki’s damn spear was tucked in his backpack right now was an uneasy itch between his shoulder blades, but there was nothing he could do about it. When the raid had come on the lab, it wasn’t SHIELD, but a new variable, mercenaries hired by an unknown party; they’d come for Wanda and Pietro, to take them as their own pawns.

But the worst had come after Clint had talked them into accepting SHIELD’s offer of protection; rather than the arrival of an extraction team, Clint’s call had gone unanswered. He’d had to find out about the Triskelion and the carriers and shit storm that followed on BBC World in a tiny little bar filled with locals and militants in the hell hole of a country they were running through.  Natasha wasn’t answering, neither phone calls nor on their designated chat boards, and all SHIELD channels were now published for everyone to see on the internet. HYDRA was SHIELD? What the hell was happening? Clint left for five minutes and everything went to shit.

For eighty-two hours, he kept his small band of people moving, promising he’d get them to safety, staying just steps ahead of their pursuit. Finally, in an internet café with the world’s slowest Wi-Fi, Clint got the message he’d been looking for: a set of coordinates and a time.

When the plane appeared, the Godbedamned Bus of all things, Clint kept his face impassive as the ramp lowered, not knowing what to expect. Then he saw Lola, the familiar suit and he knew before the man set foot on the ground. Phil “He’s Dead” Coulson walked up to them without so much as a twitch at seeing Clint. A wave of anger passed quickly, followed by a sense of inevitability … honest-to-God Clint was half-expecting this turn of events because Fury wouldn’t let anyone see the body and he damn well knew Fury lied when the mood struck him … but at least the band of worry around Clint’s chest loosened enough for him to take a full breath. Zombie or life model decoy, Phil Coulson was still a man Clint trusted, completely and utterly.

“Agent Barton,” Coulson greeted him, voice professional, but there was the slightest crinkle around the corner of his eyes; Phil was feeling guilty about letting him think he was dead. “I see you found new friends.”

“You know me, sir. I’m a party animal.” Clint gave the slightest hint of a turn of his lip to let Coulson know he could handle this.

“If you’d come with us, the med lab is ready and we have food prepared for you.” Behind Phil, a small woman in a lab coat stepped off the ramp, followed by another man, just as young, in khakis and a sweater.  She beckoned to the techs and the twins. “Then you can shower and rest, I promise.”

“What’s your name, agent?” Phil asked the other man once the rest of them were inside the plane.

“Dalton, sir. Level five operative out of the East African field office,” the man confirmed.

“Take Agent Barton’s weapon, Agent Dalton, if you please,” Phil ordered.

Clint jerked his eyes to Dalton and back to Phil. “What the hell?”

“Dalton?” was Phil’s only reaction. He waited as the man took the handgun Clint had stashed in his belt. “Hand over your bow and the quiver, Barton.”

“No.” Clint refused. “Not until you explain.”

“This is a test of your loyalty, Clint. Now hand over the weapons.” Phil remained impassive, not a sign of emotion on his face. So Clint passed his bow and then the quiver to Dalton, then shrugged his pack off and set it at his feet.

“You think I’m HYDRA, Phil?” Clint couldn’t believe it. “Seriously?”

“Of course not,” Phil replied, his gun steady. “I know you’re not. Agent Dalton is though, isn’t that right?”

“Hail HYDRA,” Dalton said with a smirk. “You think you’re so smart. Now we have the twins and the tech and we’re out of here.”

“Unfortunately, there’s the little text you sent five minutes ago when Barton told you the location of this meet, Dalton.” Phil swung the gun towards the other agent. “Selling out HYDRA is never a good idea. Thanks for the lead though. That number is yielding all sorts of information.”

“Wait! I ….”

The gun shot was loud in the clearing. Dalton didn’t stagger, he just fell straight back, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, a puff of dust where he landed on the ground.

“Jesus, Coulson, I thought you were really HYDRA there for a second. You could warn a guy.” Clint grabbed his weapons and pack, looking back up to see the hardness in Phil’s eyes return his way.

“Wheels up in two, May,” Phil said into his comm. “We’re going to have company. My office, Barton. Debrief.”

The ramp was closing even as they walked up it, taking the circular stairs and passing through the body of the plane. Clint saw another young woman, long brown hair, bent over a computer console, fingers flying as she manipulated data.

“This guy’s an idiot, A.C.,” she said, glancing curiously at Clint. “Been using the same phone to call SHIELD, HYDRA, and a bunch of unknown numbers. I’ll have more for you shortly.”

“Focus on the unknowns first,” Coulson replied, holding the door open for Clint to precede him into the small office and shutting it securely behind him.

“A.C.? And May? As in Melinda May? What the fuck is going on?” Clint couldn’t help but ask.

“You’re taking my rise from the dead fairly well,” was Coulson’s response. He leaned against his desk and nodded to the couch. Clint gladly sank down into the cushions, exhausted from the last few days.

“Yeah, well, Fury lying about you being dead is almost par for the course considering all the other weird shit that’s going on. I just caught a bit of it on TV and saw some of the files. Nat’s not answering and I was about to call Stark, I was that desperate.” Clint felt the motion of the plane as May engaged the thrusters and vertically lifted them off the ground. “So Dalton was working both sides? Any clue who the new guys are and what they want?”

“Just working theories. We’re pretty much flying blind; had to rob a fuel depot in the middle of the night just to get here,” Coulson explained. “But the twins are at the heart of it, I think. And that damn staff. That’s why you were sent deep.”

“You know about the twins?” After the Battle of New York and Phil’s death, Fury had given Clint the option to go undercover, utilizing the fact that many people thought he’d gone rogue. Even then, Fury had hints there was something else going on. The WSC circumventing his orders was a big clue. But Clint thought only Fury knew where he was and what he was doing.

“Kind of hard to hide building helicarriers with targeting programs from the people who do the paperwork,” Phil huffed. He’d been warning people for years about this. “Fury always forgot that people in cubicles were the most dangerous of all. Someone has to pay. And where there’s money, there’s a paper trail.”

“Damn, Phil.” Clint couldn’t begin to wrap his brain around all of this.

 “Look. SHIELD’s done. All these years we’ve been serving HYDRA’s agenda.” Coulson shook his head. “The stupid decisions of the WSC, the times when there was no extraction, the willingness to sacrifice assets for lesser goals. It was Cordoba when you almost died; that was when I started to realize there was more going on, that someone was trying to kill off the best agents. That there was no one to trust.”

“But Fury’s your friend. Maria, Jasper, me and Nat …” Clint trailed off.  He had a reservoir of anger about Fury not letting him say goodbye to Phil with a memorial and it was only growing deeper the longer he thought about Phil being alive.  

“Fury’s pretending to be dead,” Phil said. “Maria’s gone off the grid. And Jasper was HYDRA.”

“No. Sitwell’s not …” Oh God. Jasper had been one Phil’s closest friends; relentless in his matchmaking, Jasper had pushed them together at every opportunity. “I can’t believe that. If he was …”

“Jon Garrett called himself the clairvoyant and orchestrated a lot of this. Even Ward, one my own team, a man I handpicked; he’s locked up in holding right now until I decide what to do with him.” Phil sighed. “But here’s the thing; SHIELD wasn’t any better. Do you know what they were doing at the Fridge? We sent people there for rehabilitation, but SHIELD was experimenting on them, making them stronger so they could use them later. How is that any different than HYDRA? We created monsters, Clint.”

“So what, you join HYDRA?” Clint couldn’t believe it. “You okay with them killing all those innocent people because they might cause trouble for them one day? That’s not you, Phil.”

“Funny how having a magical spear pierce your chest, dying, being brought back by painful torture and having your memories erased will do to a guy,” Phil said.  “And a guy I thought was a friend injected me with untested serum from an alien, sent another friend to spy on me, and talked me into lying to everyone else I knew. Yeah, that can change a man.”

Clint stood, drawn to the look of pain that crossed Phil’s face, and reached out a hand. “God, Phil, I don’t know what to …”

The gun was back, pointing right at Clint’s chest. “Stop. I meant what I said, Clint. You’re either with me or against me. Screw SHIELD and fuck HYDRA. I don’t care about either one of them. There’s a new threat out there, something that’s been in the shadows, manipulating all of us. I’m sorry, but Garrett isn’t the clairvoyant; he was a damn good soldier, but never a leader. He takes orders, not gives them. All of this … getting us to destroy ourselves from the inside out … is just setting the stage for whatever comes next.”

“So, what?” Clint kept his posture easy and open, ready for whatever happened. “What do you want to do now?”

“Go on the offensive. Take the handful of people I trust and do things my way.” Phil’s eyes bore right into Clint’s as if he could read all of the secrets there. “I want you with me, Clint. Fitz, Simons, Skye, May … they’re onboard already. But I … need  … you. We’ve always had each other’s back. I’m asking you to do that now.”

“I’ll always be with you, Phil.” Clint cautiously took one step closer until the barrel of the gun was almost touching his vest. “The only reason I stayed with SHIELD was because you were there. Natasha and I would have left years ago; I’ve got no problem with shades of grey and playing the bad guy if I need to survive. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. But I still have to be sure.” Phil’s shoulders relaxed just the tiniest bit. “That little pub in Glaslough; what did you say to me after you’d been shot by that crazy militant group? “

“God damn it, Phil. You promised never to bring that up.” Not that Clint had forgotten; kind of hard to ignore pouring his heart out and getting shot down.

“I never told anyone else, but you told me something that I need to believe again, that I want to remember.”

Wrapping his hand around the barrel of the gun, Clint folded it flat against Phil’s chest so he could get close enough to whisper. “I told you that I’d follow you to hell and back, that I worshipped at the altar of Phillip J. Coulson. All you had to do was ask and I’d never leave your side.”

“I’m asking.” HIs voice was just as low as Clint’s.

“To hell and back, Phil. If I could have joined you in death, I would have.”

The gun slipped away and he put it on the desk, hand shaking slightly. “I don’t want to do this, but I don’t see another option. Now that you’re with me … we just might survive.”

“First thing you need is a cool name. Red Skull, Nick Fury, Doctor Doom, the Howling Commandos. Coulson’s Crew ain’t going to cut it.” Clint felt a smile spreading across his face. “Although A. C. is nice.”

“First thing we have to do is deal with Ward’s betrayal. He knows things, but May was sleeping with him, so I can’t leave her alone in the room with him. Then we get what we can from the techs, let them go, then decide what to do with the twins,” Phil contradicted Clint. He was back to his Coulson face, calm and collected.

“I’ll take a pass at interrogating Ward. He doesn’t know what to expect from me,” Clint offered. “Wanda and Pietro aren’t the most trusting – I can’t blame them – so we need to tread carefully. Treat them well. Don’t experiment on them.”  He started to step back, but Phil’s hands wrapped around his biceps and held him in place.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten the rest of that conversation, Clint.” Before Clint could think about that statement, Phil brushed a light kiss along his lips. “There’s a reason my relationships never worked. I remember now.”

“Wow. You’re really are the new and improved Phil,” Clint said with a grin.

“New and not as duty bound Phil. That’s me,” he said, kissing Clint again.

To hell with SHIELD. Clint had the center of his world back and he wasn’t going to let him go.

 


End file.
